Let's open up and sing, and ring the bells out!

(Click here if you don't get the reference.)

Remember that guy I mentioned that was really causing trouble in our house? Well he's gone now. Here's what happened...

We're not exactly sure what his deal is, but this kid was incredibly annoying and creepy. He basically never stopped talking, and it's hard to explain, but he just made us very uncomfortable. He was always kind of lurking. He would always harass every girl he met, which creeped them out and made them not want to be around him or us. On a few occasions, he took our things without asking and then denied doing so. He always needed attention and couldn't take no for an answer. When two or more of us had a private conversation, he just had to know what we were talking about, even though most of the time it was none of his business. It got to the point that we could barely stand to be in the same room as him, and Sarah (the one girl in the house) was afraid to even be in the house alone with him in case he exploded with all the unnecessary resentment he had bottled up inside. This program is about Israel, and we spent all our time worrying about how to deal with this person. That's not right. It also wasn't just people in this house; the other Ramla group was uneasy around him as well.

Another issue, just for the Oranim company, was that he didn't have a local phone, and he came to Israel with only US$95 in his pocket and no plastic. He claimed that he was waiting for a debit card to come in the mail, but that just arrived today and apparently there wasn't actually any money on it.

Since there was so much tension in the Shivat Tzion house, Nir (the city coordinator) moved him to a different apartment for a trial period of two days so we wouldn't kill each other. After a day or two, Nir called a group meeting with Ofer (Oranim's director of long-term programs) and we all discussed what our issues were with this person. Ofer realized that there was no chance of reconciling our differences, and this person was told that he had to leave the program. And we found out that he will get his deposit back, so that eliminates some guilt on our part. And basically that was that. He's going back to the States on Thursday.